Hi! I’ve recently started working on a project I had in mind for some time – a wheeled bipedal robot, like Impulse or Beni.
From the research I’ve done, I found out that – as probably all of us that ended up here – actuators are pretty expensive. That’s why I figured that making the robot small will probably be cheaper, as all the motors etc. get smaller.
From my calculations (pic below, for those of you interested), with the robot weight of around 2kgs, I’m going to need 1Nm continuous, and 3.6Nm of peak torque at the joints.
From my research on actuators, the “Aliexpress grade” 5010 360KV motor seems to be the cheapest BLDC used in actuators that could do the job here. I intend to use these for the hips and knees (with a reducer of around 1:10), if they turn out to have enough torque when tested. I intend to use something like the 2208 motors for the wheels, and direct drive them. (If you have suggestions regarding the BLDC choice, feel free to let me know!!)
My question is – what controllers would you use for this purpose? The cheapest way to drive the 5010s seems to be MKS DUAL FOC V3.2 Plus, as it’s around $20 per 2 motors controlled. I’m pretty sceptical about this though, it seems too good to be true.
The cheapest way to drive the 2208s seems to be the SimpleFOC Mini.
Any help would be appreciated!
